Painting behind bars

About the author

Mostafa Azimitabar

Mostafa Azimitabar is a human-rights activist and two-time Archibald Prize finalist. As a refugee from Kurdistan, his status as an Australian resident is yet...

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Non-fictionDiē was the best driver I knew. ‘When you drive, you stare at everything but see nothing. You’re inexperienced,’ he lectured. ‘When I drive, I stare at nothing – I can chat, I can sing. But I see everything. Parking spaces, jaywalkers with a death wish, doggies and kitties. And for hours at time, without breaking concentration. It’s like meditation.’ Diē’s love language included showing me footage of near-miss traffic incidents on WeChat. Each trip of ours decreased my risk of appearing in his feed. These hours became the most time we had ever spent together.

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Poetry yes, one day, finally, it will all fall away like all dead things we will sit again by the campfire story illuminating the fall of empire one day again we...

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Non-fictionAmerican sociologists John and Ruth Hill Useem first coined the term ‘third culture kid’ in the 1950s to describe the experience of Americans who were raised abroad in a culture different to their birth culture. This term reflects the way children raised overseas straddle three cultures: the culture of their birth, the culture within which they are raised, and a third, nebulous culture – the culture they create through the way they learn to relate to each other. The third culture is interstitial, not an amalgam. ‘Third culture kid’ (TCK) is a term often used as shorthand. Many TCKs will have experienced more than one cultural shift too. Those with diplomatic, military or missionary families are often raised in multiple countries, and others, like me, will continue their travels overseas as adults too, exercising the global and economic mobility they know well.